The United States and Britain have launched a fresh wave of strikes against 36 Houthi targets across 13 locations in Yemen.
“The U.S. and UK forces conducted strikes against 36 targets in Yemen related to the rebel Houthi movement Ansar Allah on Saturday, according to a joint statement from Australia, Bahrain, Denmark, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States published by the Pentagon’s press service.
‘We will not hesitate to defend lives and the free flow of commerce in one of the world's most critical waterways’, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also stressed in a statement released.
Following the escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Gaza Strip, the Yemen-based Houthis warned that they would carry out strikes on Israeli territory and would bar any ships associated with the Jewish state from sailing across the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait until the operation in the Palestinian enclave ended. Since mid-November 2023, the Yemeni rebel group has attacked dozens of civilian ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
On January 12th, U.S. and UK aircraft, naval ships and submarines delivered joint strikes on Ansar Allah sites in some Yemeni cities, including Sanaa and Hodeidah. Houthi missile sites, drones and radiolocation systems were targeted. On January 23th, the UK and the U.S. carried out a second officially confirmed series of joint strikes, with the main targets being Houthi underground warehouses and facilities related to missile launches and air surveillance”. -TASS
Although the latest U.S. and British strikes in Yemen reportedly targeted launchers and storage sites involved in the Houthi’s destabilizing assault on U.S., UK, and any Israel-affiliated vessels, the Shiite militant group has vowed that its ongoing missile and drone attacks against commercial and military ships transiting the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden will only intensify in response to the American and British bombing campaign.